The idea of what it means to own a company never entered my mind when I wanted to start Knowledge Cue. Below is a note that I had made and emailed my business partner around 2008 when we started.

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I could see the challenges customers (rather users) are facing and want to provide help in a way that is different to what other providers are doing. It is also (mostly) about SharePoint. I feel no one has all the pieces of the puzzle when it came to deploying SharePoint as a platform. It just happens that we are great in articulating SharePoint, and we also have a fair few likeminded people who are aligned to my way of thinking. It is also apparent that Microsoft is and will continue making significant investments in SharePoint as a strategic platform to capture the collaboration market share from its competitors.

“What we’re seeing with SharePoint is that people finally see it as a platform to build applications on, as opposed to it being seen as just a collaboration tool,” said Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork”

“It’s a pretty vibrant space, and there’s a long list of things that people are doing with SharePoint. It is very much an application platform, and that’s enabling ISVs to be innovative”

“I think the world thinks of SharePoint mainly as a portal, but when you look at the direction in which it’s moving, SharePoint is really an enterprise operating system”

From: https://www.crn.com/features/applications-os/205801189/revving-up-the-sharepoint-engine

The idea of creating a company that would deliver “platform” value to both the business and the end users is what drives me to start the company. Some of the key principles for us as a company is to keep our cost to serve low so we could provide economies of scale to any organisation who want our services. In order to do that we have to adapt a different mindset to other technology providers that we are potentially competing with or partnering. Therefore, our discussions of our business need to be centred on a business model that must be lean to the core:
 

No overhead costs, which means not being tied to physical offices; work from home or be integrated into the customer site as much as possible, we can meet in cafes for groups meetings (assuming we hire staff)

Find the best/experienced people who are adaptable and can work with us, pay them top rates

Give them the best experience and flexibility, mobility and place independence (assuming they want to work with us)

Use our connections and networks to win work, all business is a network of people you know or want to know

Rent or outsource what is not our core business – Buy setup own laptops, rent accounting software (maybe Xero?) etc

Be cashflow positive from day 0 – i.e. no one puts in any of their own money – I need some help here as this is not my strong suite

Do we need a lawyer/accountant? Typically expensive?

The above loosely means we will carry some risk initially, but doesn’t everything include risks. I think we can have fun with this and make some money. To heck with it let’s do this!

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I’ll talk about what it means to own a company in another post as we are already at a tipping point in a positive way!